[jhbadger]

No, Darwin never learned about Mendel's work, even though Mendel sent him a copy (which was well after Darwin had published the Origin). The copy in Darwin's library has its pages uncut -- meaning that Darwin never got around to even opening it. Darwin instead believed in blending inheritance rather than discrete units.

As for Mukherjee, while his Emperor of All Maladies about cancer was brilliant, The Gene (and Mukherjee's New Yorker article that he expanded to make his book) has a lot of issues as many geneticists and molecular biologists such as Walter Gilbert and Tom Maniatis pointed out at the time.

[bubblyworld]

Thanks for the correction, I must have remembered that wrong. In that case Darwin didn't have the full theory yet either I guess. But my point about the ancients stands.